My text is
a Thomason tract. Only ‘…ber’ for the month appears in his title page dating,
it was perhaps September, certainly the 20th of the relevant month.
A most
faithful relation of two wonderful passages which happened very lately (to wit,
on the first and eighth days of this present September, being Lords days) in
the parish of Bradfield in Berk-shire 1650.
The London writer
has a preamble, in which the millenarian hopes entertained by Dr John Pordage
and his wife are represented as (inevitably) the devil’s work prospering in
Berkshire, just as they are prospering everywhere as never before:
“This is an
Age of wonders: for I dare affirme, that since the deplorable Fall of our first
Parents, at which time Sin was first ushered into the World, the ill spirit was
never so busie, he never made such a harvest, or had such a latitude of power
given him to ramble up and down in any part of the earth, as he hath had lately
in this island; witness else in what various forms he hath appeared, and what
sundry feats he hath played in Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge-shire, and other
places, especially in Scotland, where thousands have been possest by him, and
so brought to the Gallows: And now it seems he hath taken footing in Berk-shire,
as appears by these two uncouth Examples following.”
The writer
renders Pordage’s name as ‘Doctor Pordich’ (making me wonder how often you
would give, in those spelling-permissive days, a subtly denigratory spelling to
a person’s name – ‘poor ditch’). John Pordage, as his ODNB life makes clear, was only just holding on in the regular
church. The ‘Commissioners
for ejecting of Scandalous Ministers’ would finally oust him in 1655. Pordage seems to have been involved or interested
in the Family of Love, was prone to denunciations of marriage, was accused of
denying the Trinity, was a Behmenist; while the ‘Everet’ named here as the
likely ‘conjurer’ who has directed the devil to make these possessions in
Berkshire, was actually John Everard - Leveller, Grindletonian, alchemist, etc,
etc.
So, what
would be represented as diabolic intrusion into parish life in Berkshire was
really product of Pordage’s earnest and ecstatic belief that the heavens were
about to open. Marvellously, he was in his pulpit preaching when it became
somehow apparent to him that the big moment had come, and he exited his church
then and there, anxious to get back to where the real action was going to be:
“Doctor Pordich being preaching in the
Parish-Church of Bradfield (on the
eighth of this instant September,
being Lords day) within a quarter of an hour he fell into a Trance, running out
of the Church, and bellowing like a Bull, saying that he was called, and must
be gone.”
In its
small way, it is a moment with something of the significance of the famous time
when Mohammed turned his followers round during worship, away from Jerusalem,
and towards Mecca. The Vicar of Bradfield exits his church, to be translated
into heaven from home, along with his true followers - his wife, and some of
their female friends. In his case, it proved not to be so epochal.
Understandably,
when he left his church at such a moment in such a state, Pordage was pursued
and questioned, but only replied that he must be gone ‘home to his house’.
Fortunately, William Foster (a local gentleman rich enough to own a coach)
followed Pordage home and witnessed what happened when the vicar got home:
“Where
being come, he going up the Stairs, found his Wife, (Mistress Pordich) Clothed all in White Lawne,
from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot, with a White Rod in her
hand.”
What’s
pleasing about all this is that the apocalypse seems to be egalitarian in
regards to gender. Now Pordage had heterodox views about marriage, and
ambiguous relations with a number of women. He probably regarded his women followers
as being in a state higher than marriage anyway. But at this moment, his wife (in
the eyes of the normal world) Mistress Pordage, is garbed as a prophetess, and
will soon call for ‘Elijah’s mantle’. Female followers gather: “Mistress Chevill coming in fell on her knees,
saying, That she was to meet with her Spouse, and her Prophetess. After this
comes in Mistress Tracie, holding of
her head, and making of strange noyses, that were heard within her, in a very
hideous passion. After this they fell all to dancing the Hays, about three
flower-pots…”
Mr Foster, who
has followed from church, asks Pordage what is meant by the dancing, and learns
that “It was a rejoicing, because they
had overcome the Devil.” Of course, joy that you have vanquished Satan in
Berkshire can easily be represented in London as Satan’s victory over you.
Perhaps there is a Familist touch in Mistress Chevill arriving to meet ‘her
Spouse’ – Christ? Pordage? Though being the man he was, Pordage was inclined to
deny that there was very much significant difference.
“With that
his Wife cries out for Elijah’s
Mantle, and then comes up Mistress Chevill,
and Mistress Pordich fell of adoring
her; and then in came one Goodwife Pukerig,
and bended her body, and kissed her knee; Mistress Pordich assuring her that there was a place prepared for her in
heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Virgin Mary.”
‘Elijah’s
mantle’ because of the second book of Kings, verse 11: “And it came to pass, as they still went
on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of
fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into
heaven.” Mistress Pordage is ready to ascend to heaven without death, as
happened to Elijah. (“Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy
head to day?”)
But, as usual
with these moments when the rapture is about to commence, there’s a snag –
someone is missing, and it seems that this someone, who perhaps was important
in making up the right numbers, was Foster’s own wife. Foster, having seen
enough, leaves, but is urgently sent after and asked to return, bringing his
wife with him. With her
husband very much awake to strange goings-on, Foster’s wife gets cold feet, and
simply refuses to go. In his 1655 publication, Innocencie appearing, through the dark mists of pretended guilt, Pordage over-confidently (and very conveniently) cites all
the charges that were made against him, and in that work, it sounds as though
Mistress Foster was rather frightened by the thought of seeing the heavens
opened, as had been promised. As for Foster himself, he was probably involved at some lesser level himself. His
wife having refused to answer the summons to be present at this Pang Valley
ascension into heaven, Foster “tooke his Coach, and went alone: so coming into
the Doctors house, he found the Doctor sitting in a Chaire all in black Velvet.”
Costumes, as ever with early modern culture, were important for the show – as
prophetess, Mistress Pordage has head to foot white linen, and her husband,
black velvet (costly material and dye!). The mantle of Elijah itself was
probably still in a wardrobe waiting to be deployed.
Asked where
his wife is, Foster says she is not well, and therefore she cannot come: “Then
said the Doctor, there is nothing can be done without her.” Crisis indeed!
Mistress Pordage also asks the coachman, and hears confirmation that it is all
going wrong. But they seem to have endeavoured to prolong the celestial window
of opportunity, perhaps in hope that Mistress Foster would relent and show up
just in time: “So there they keep dancing of the Hayes, and Trenchmore, and
expecting when they shall be taken up to heaven every hour.”
The writer
concludes with a dark imputation – Everard, as witch, was directing all this
from far away: “By what means this Distraction came, is not as yet certainly
known; but it is thought it was done by one Everet (a man suspected to be a
Sorcerer or Witch) who much-frequented the Doctors house, and would often play
with the children; and he was seen at London in a frantick posture, much about
the time that these things happened.”
The little
tract has ‘two wonderful passages’, however. Out of a sense of social status, the
London writer has told the story of
Doctor Pordage’s folly first. He then moves on to detail what had happened the
week before in the very same parish church. As this had happened to a thirteen
year old youth, an illiterate member of a poor man’s large family (well,
illiterate for the moment, but that all would change), it became the secondary
story. The writer has relegated the one of the local signs that probably
triggered Pordage to announce the apocalypse from its proper chronological
place. Something of this sort would
happen in Pordage’s church: on Sept 1st, a youth of 13, “son to one
Goodman Snelling”, “being in the
Parish-Church of Bradfield, fell into a very strange Fit, foaming at the mouth
for the space of two hours.”
Now to fall
into a fit and foam at the mouth seems to me a very likely reaction to one of
John Pordage’s sermons – he seems to have been a preacher worth hearing, wildly
unpredictable, charismatic, full of novel doctrines, and easily misunderstood.
The youth, whose sanity has probably been affected by listening to Pordage
preach every Sunday, finally emerges
from his fit, and announces that he must go to London, taking his father with
him. In London, they will find an old man there “living without Temple-bar, and
said to be a Gold-smith”) who was “possest with two devils, and had the Root of
Corruption in him.”
Exactly
what you’d want to visit London to do – to locate the root of corruption. One
can perhaps sense Pordage’s influence here, and a touching willingness on
behalf of his young parishioner to come up with some marvel to interest his
raving vicar. Exactly as foretold, they do indeed find the old man, who has
been lying in a trance, from which he revives at the very instant that they
arrive. This mysterious personage gives them yet more bewildering instructions:
they are to go to Beacon Hill (it is just south of Newbury, close to Highclere
house, aka Downton Abbey), “and there he should finde, at such a place, a
crooked stick lying on the ground, and in it there should be an Inkhorn and a
pen, and directions how to write and read, and to speak several Languages, and
by the stick should be lying a lamb.”
The
eagerness to attain literacy, by hook or by crook, is commendable. Off they
trudge out to the west. Arrived at the hill, first of all they see the lamb, then
they find the crooked stick, and “therein an Inkhorn and pen: and the boy
taking up the stick, the Lamb vanished.” Then the visionary experiences start:
they hear “strange voices in the air; and they saw the King with his head off,
and then again they saw him with his head on, and a Crown upon it: also they saw
Wallingford on fire, and the Governours
head off.”
Emotional
perturbation indeed, a perfect 17th century mixture of political and
religious anxieties: the King, a troubling beheaded phantom, and then re-headed.
Heaven’s anger striking Wallingford (which had been the last royalist
stronghold to hold out in 1646, but finally failed the king’s cause) and its
Parliamentarian governor (Colonel Arthur Evelyn, it would have been). The
father and son take the bad news to Wallingford, and seem to have been received
in a level-headed way: “Whereupon, this Goodman Snelling and his son went to
the Governour of Wallingford, and told him of it; who answered, that he hoped
no such thing would come to pass.”
No great
outcome at Wallingford, which would not burn down till 1675, and they are left
with the suddenly literate younger Snelling, who also does his best to manifest
the languages he has supernaturally acquired:
“This
Goodman Snelling hath a great family, and they are all in a very strange
frantick condition. he is a pot-ash-maker; and when his Fit is over, he is as
sensible as any one; and he hath told his neighbours that he would give all
that he has in the world, so that he were free of this business. And he saith
that his son did bring him to such a hill, as right as though he had been there
a thousand times before. And the boy can now write very well, which before he
could not. Also, there are strange confused sound of Languages heard within
him, but he does not speak them distinctly.”
Our writer
concludes: “These things are certainly true, and avouched by a cloud of
witnesses, young and old, who are the people of the best reputation in that
County. My Conclusion shall be with this short prayer, which never was more
seasonable then now: God deliver us from
the Devil and all his shifts.”
As I said,
Pordage somehow kept his job in the church until he was ejected in 1655 after
hearings in1654. There’s nothing at the church in Bradfield that remains from
his time: the Victorians made a thoroughgoing and very heavy-handed restoration
of the building in 1848.
Pordage
himself features pricelessly in A Collection of modern relations of matter
of fact concerning witches & witchcraft upon the persons of people (1693), which has an account of the quite
staggering manifestations taking place in the Pordage’s house in 1649. The fun here
is that it starts as Pordage’s defence of himself from charges of conjuration.
He too takes the line that Satan is empowered as never before:
“How then can Bradfield, or any other Place, be exempted from
his Appearing when God permits? And may not all this be for the manifesting of
his Glory, Goodness and Power? And who can tell whose Family may be next
exposed by God’s permission, to be tryed and proved by the Representation of Satan? And I desire you seriously to consider
how any such Apparitions raised by the Devil, and permitted by God for his own
Glory, argue me either Ignorant, Scandalous, or Insufficient …”
But, whenever he
was in a hole, which (unsurprisingly in view of his beliefs), was often, and
seriously, Pordage could not resist enlarging and improving the hole to suit his
own fancy. He can’t hold back from telling how, yes, the spirit of Everard
appeared nocturnally in his bedchamber in August 1649, how then he saw a terrifying
giant, then a dragon.
Pordage sounds
off (as was his wont) largely about the different spiritual worlds, and then
produces this undeniably striking witness to the activities of the evil side of
the spirit world: “the Spirits made some wonderful Impressions upon visible Bodies
without, as Figures of Men
and Beasts upon the Glass Windows and the Ceilings of the House, some of which
yet remain. But what was most remarkable was the whole visible World
represented by the Spirits upon the Bricks of a Chimney, in the form of two
half Globes, as in the Maps. After which, upon other Bricks of the same
Chimney, was Figured a Coach and four Horses, with Persons in it, and a Footman
attending, all seeming to be in Motion, with many other such Images, which were
wonderful exactly done. Now, fearing lest there might be any Danger in these
Images, through unknown Conjuration and false Magic, we endeavoured to wash
them out with wet Cloths, but could not, finding them engraven in the substance
of the Bricks, which indeed might have continued till this day, had not our
fear and suspicion of Witch-craft, and some evil design of the Devil against us
in it, caused us to deface and obliterate them with Hammers. Now, what the Devil’s End in the former
Apparitions, and those figurative Representations was, the
Lord knows: But it was certainly Evil.”
In Innocencie appearing, through the dark mists of pretended guilt, Pordage obligingly lists all the charges made against him
locally, and something of the same kind of optical hallucination appears: “in
Dr Pordage’s house in Bradfield, lately the new Jerusalem hath been seen to
come down from heaven, all of precious stones; and in the new Jerusalem was a
Globe, which Globe was eternity”.
I wonder what was
going off. Were these things products of Pordage’s heated imagination? He was
capable of seeing a lot, indeed, seeing infinity, in almost anything, as his
wild commentary on very basic images of circles and dots in Theologia mystica shows. But his house
seems to have become notorious, and to have had all kinds of people turning up
there. Everard was an experimenter: could he have done devised some method of
projecting or etching the pictures?
I cycled over to
what had been his church earlier today. The church as an institution expelled
Pordage, and the over-sized and frowsty Victorian pile, which seems in part to
have been used for services attended by boys from Bradfield College, testifies
to the enduring dull power of that church. Pordage is listed in a manuscript
list of previous incumbents as one who ‘intruded’ on the proper pastoral succession:
Elias Ashmole is down as his patron to the living. The Victorians in their
re-build obliterated any chance of finding a church with a furtive alchemical
emblem or Rosicrucian enigma.
